Friday, December 24, 2010
"The NASA study of arsenic-based life was fatally flawed, say scientists"
I'm thinking NASA is fighting for it's life and funding.
Perhaps that's leading to premature "discoveries"...
Perhaps that's leading to premature "discoveries"...
Carl Zimmer reports at Slate.com:
"As soon Redfield started to read the paper, she was shocked. 'I was outraged at how bad the science was,' she told me.
Redfield blogged a scathing attack on Saturday. Over the weekend, a few other scientists took to the Internet as well. Was this merely a case of a few isolated cranks? To find out, I reached out to a dozen experts on Monday. Almost unanimously, they think the NASA scientists have failed to make their case. 'It would be really cool if such a bug existed,' said San Diego State University's Forest Rohwer, a microbiologist who looks for new species of bacteria and viruses in coral reefs. But, he added, 'none of the arguments are very convincing on their own.' That was about as positive as the critics could get. 'This paper should not have been published,' said Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado."
